With the 23rd pick, your Minnesota Vikings select...

We'll surely get into the 2024 QB class in the Draft/College subforum as the 2023 College season gets closer, but entering the 2022 College season, the general thought was 5 or possibly even 6 Round 1 QB's for the 2023 Draft: Bryce Young, CJ Stroud, Will Levis, Anthony Richardson, Tyler Van Dyke (University of Miami-FL) and possibly Tanner McKee. Van Dyke fell out of favor real quick after a primetime loss at Texas A&M and then backed it up with a horrific home loss to Middle Tennesee St and was benched and McKee never showed Round 1 potential, partially due to a bad Stanford offense and mostly because he's not a Round 1 QB and was overrated. Hendon Hooker was possibly on his way to being included in Round 1 discussion but the road loss to Georgia and the torn ACL at South Carolina (which meant not participating physically in the pre-Draft process) pretty much ended that. So we started out with 5-6 Round 1 QB's, dropped to 4 in November 2022 when Van Dyke and McKee fell out of favor, but possibly gained Hooker and he tore his ACL and we're at 4.

At this point, the 2024 class doesn't quite have that 5-6 Round 1 QB's; you have Caleb Williams, Drake Maye and then Deion Sanders son, Shedeur Sanders, as the Malik Willis/Anthony Richardson duel-threat Round 1 QB. Beyond that, it's a cluttered-bunch of questions marks of QB's that opted to go back for 1 more year: Bo Nix (Oregon), Michael Penix, Jr (Washington), Spencer Rattler (South Carolina), Jayden Daniels (LSU), Cam Ward (Washington St), Devin Leary (NC State), Jordan Travis (FSU),etc, and then a few that could naturally come out after their 3rd year: JJ McCarthy (Michigan), Quin Ewers (Texas), Kyle McCord (Ohio St) - and none of them are Round 1 material from the get-go, but you know some of them could have Hendon Hooker-type seasons to vault themselves up. You could argue that Bo Nix - who played in a bowl game vs Drake Maye this past season and lead Oregon to a game-winning drive in that game - could arguably be Round 1 material entering the 2023 College season based on his strong 2022 season, but he has such inconsistent tape from his Auburn days that I need to see it again in 2023 to be a believer. Michael Penix Jr has had medical/injury issues during his Indiana days that he needs to show he can play another full season in Washington, too.

So the difference between the 2023 QB Class and the 2024 QB Class at this point is that the while the 2024 QB Class will certainly include a whole bunch of names, they are only starting out with 3 Round 1 QB's (Williams, Maye & Sanders) at this point while the 2023 Class started out with 5-6. It's the Day 2 QB's that will possibly intrigue teams like the Vikings who probably won't be able to get into the Top 10 to have a crack at the top prospects.